Third Son
| traci (at) orossy.com |
“Prince Cadvyr.”
I was leaning over the railing and staring down into the valley, pretending to be fascinated by the
shadows the moons cast over the rocks. Somewhere out there, my father was holding a vigil over my
mother’s pyre with only Veldyn in attendance. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the crackle of
flames, and the light breeze brought the scent of funereal herbs to my nose.
I didn’t turn to acknowledge the physician, but I shivered when I heard the fledgling whimper. “Get—
that—out of my room!” I hissed. “I don’t want to see it.” A flake of ash drifted before my eyes, a
reminder of just why I did not want to look at the infant Navyn carried.
“He’s your brother.”
“That is not my brother. My brother is dead. That killed my mother.” I couldn’t clearly define the
emotions coursing through me. Grief, over the loss of my mother, shock at hearing my father’s sorrow,
and my wings shook with barely repressed rage over Navyn’s presumption at bringing the fledgling to
my room.
“No. It’s not his fault. You can’t punish him for the faults of others.”
“He’s an ill-omened fledgling, conceived in grief and birthed in grief. Conceived the day my brother
died and birthed the day my mother died. I don’t want it near me.”
The fledgling whimpered again and nuzzled his head into Navyn’s arm. “There, now, Starling,
Cadvyr didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
I finally turned to him, raising an eyebrow and taking care not to look at the bundle he held. “
‘Starling?’ Why are you calling it that? It’s a name for a weak, helpless little—“ I stopped, realizing that
Navyn had me exactly where he wanted me. I’d just jumped to the defense of the fledgling I wanted to
forget.
“He is weak and helpless. Gods, Cadvyr, his eyes aren’t even open yet. He needs you. He doesn’t
have anyone else.”
Me, take care of a newborn fledgling? The Seraph was mad! “Why don’t you take care of it? I can’t,
I have duties to attend to. I can’t take him to the privy councils or to train the fledglings. It’s a female’s
task—“
“And you know how well the females here would treat him, not being of their own blood. I certainly
can’t care for him; I’m already old.”
He had me there. None of my father’s other consorts would deign to care for the newborn properly
since he was not of their blood. I tried desperately to think of another solution. “You’ve been foster
father to over forty royal fledglings, and you claim to be too old? I can’t care for him, Navyn. You ask
too much of me. Besides, all you have to do is look at him to know that he needs a physician’s
supervision.”
“How would you know? You haven’t even looked at him,” Navyn accused.
“Nor am I going to. He is not my responsibility.” Was this some ploy of his to give me a reason to
live? Some insurance that I wouldn’t try to throw myself off of another cliff? I wouldn’t do it; I wouldn’
t be manipulated into caring for a fledging I didn’t want!
“Blood calls to blood, Cadvyr, regardless of the circumstances that brought him into the world. He is
your brother. Care for him or leave him to the mercy of the desert, I care not which,” Navyn said, and
set the infant down in my hammock and left the room.
“Navyn! Don’t you dare!” I called to him, aghast. “Lord of the Wind, Navyn, come back!”
He didn’t come back, even when the fledgling started to cry, a mewling, hiccoughing kind of sound.
I made no move to comfort it, though the sound grated on my frazzled nerves. Perhaps if I didn’t touch
it, the fledgling would stop crying and I could ignore him for just a little longer.
I didn’t expect Navyn to return, but it was terribly cruel of him to leave the two of us alone together.
The fledgling was too weak and helpless to care for itself, and I was to terrified to care too deeply for
any living being again, which was exactly the reason that canny old Seraph had left him behind.
He’d caught me in a neat little trap. Navyn knew I’d never let the fledgling die of neglect, or of any
other reason I could prevent, and the only way to properly take care of him was to bend, if not break,
several of the doctrines of conduct. As Third Son, I was not allowed to have any of my own fledglings,
but the doctrines said nothing about caring for and raising a fledgling that was my brother in the event
of my mother’s death. Fledglings were not allowed at the dinner table until their first flight, but that was
because the blood-related females would take care of them at another table so they wouldn’t be a
nuisance at my father’s table. This little fledgling didn’t have that kind of support.
What if I did just leave it to die? Why should I care about it? Part of me wanted to let the fledgling
behind. How could I encourage the poor thing to thrive in a place like this? Unwanted, unloved, and
unlikely to survive no matter how carefully I watched over him?
But . . . I groaned. My mother had died because of him, and for him, and for me. The doctrines for
conduct had kept my mother and I apart, but she’d given me the only thing she could to show that she
truly cared for me. Gods. As much as I’d loved my mother, I resented the fact that I’d been guilt-
tripped into caring for a brother I did not want and could not accept.
I looked closer at the fledgling, still refraining from touching him. His eyes were tightly closed, the
lids tinted blue, and wouldn’t open for several days. Gray down ran from his forehead down the nape of
his neck and covered the little v-shaped limbs jutting from his back that would someday shape into
wings. Really, he was an ugly little thing, but all newborn fledglings were until their first feathers grew
in when they were two or three years of age.
Against my better judgment, I picked up the fledgling, still wrapped in his brygga-wool blanket, and
held him more like I would a load of cactus-fruit than an infant even though he was hardly bigger than
my two hands put together. Oddly enough, both of us seemed to calm with the contact. As many
fledglings as we had underfoot, I never had contact with the infants. They stayed with the females until
they were able to fly on their own, and after that they were given their own room and turned over to
Veldyn and I to begin weapons and agility training.
I knew nothing about fledglings, but I knew that this one was hungry. I wanted to put him down, to
leave him behind, but I had the irrational sensation that the fledgling would give me no peace unless I fed
him. Damn the physician. I wouldn’t leave the fledgling to starve, even though I was still loathe to look
at the scrawny thing, let alone touch it. How was it going to eat, anyway? Suckling obviously was not
an option, and I doubted one of the nursing brygga would stand still long enough to accept a feathered
kid. I would have to ask Navyn, much as that realization shamed me.
“Come on, little one,” I said, staying away from Navyn’s nickname of “starling.” “We shall have to
go see Navyn to figure out what is best for you.” I was only going to feed the thing; I hadn’t agreed to
care for it, not yet. There had to be a better option.
Navyn wasn’t in his still-room when I arrived, but I let myself in anyway. He would return soon
enough; his bedroom was at the rear, a cozy little nook with a small window. His still-room was
furnished with walls on every shelf, filled to the brim with plants, jars, bandages, books, and the various
other implements he used in his profession. His herb-bag stood ready by the door, meaning that Navyn
hadn’t gone on a medical emergency.
I sat with the fledgling on the all-too-familiar cot, chosen by Navyn over a hammock because he
couldn’t have his patients swaying while he tended them. I studied the shelves carved into the walls,
trying to find some means of feeding the fledgling. I knew that the orphaned brygga were bottle-fed if a
surrogate mother could not be found, but I did not see the means of fashioning such an implement and
did not wish to disturb Navyn’s collection without his permission.
I didn’t have to wait long. “Third Son,” Navyn said upon his return. He didn’t look at me, and instead
busied himself with some of the herbs on a shelf. Something had happened in the time he’d been gone.
He looked sad, something other than my mother’s death. “I had a feeling you would come.” He smiled
wanly, as if he were making a joke.
“You left me little choice,” I told him, still uncomfortable with the weight of the fledgling in my arms.
“He’s hungry.”
Navyn raised one feathery eyebrow. “How do you know?”
That seemed an odd question until I took a moment to think about it. “I just—know. It’s like he’s
telling me without using words. He won’t let me alone until I feed him. Don’t all infants do that?”
Navyn evaded my question by digging around on one of his shelves and withdrawing a clean cloth
and a bowl of fresh brygga milk. “Here, let me hold him a moment,” he said, and I handed him the
fledgling, feeling oddly cold as I did so. Navyn soaked the cloth in the milk and held it over the infant’s
mouth. The fledgling licked at it with a tiny pink tongue before he started trying to suck the moisture
from the cloth.
“Here, my prince, it’s your turn,” Navyn said. I took the fledgling back and tried to hold him as
efficiently as the physician did. “Watch his head,” he cautioned. I supported the fledgling’s head on my
upper arm and dipped the cloth in the milk, holding it above the infant’s mouth. Much to my relief, he
ate as well for me as he did for Navyn.
I continued the process for a while until the fledgling burped and turned his head away from the
cloth. Navyn had kept himself busy scribbling on parchment. “What’s the matter, Navyn? Where were
you?”
For a moment, I thought he would not answer me, because the quill continued its scratching. He
paused, and sighed. “We shall have to Name your brother sooner than usual. Tonight, in fact.”
“Tonight? How can we? His eyes won’t open for a few days yet.” I didn’t understand. Traditionally,
the newborn fledgling was given his name on the night his eyes opened for the first time and could see
the faces of those that Named him. It was the mother’s duty to name her infant, but without my mother
present I assumed the name would be mine to give.
Navyn turned away from me and fiddled with something on one of the shelves. “There is no easy way
to say this. Your father has requested that I leave his service, Third Son.”
“What? Why?” I demanded. I couldn’t imagine the palace without Navyn. He’d been here since
before my father was born and nursed not only him but countless other royal Seraphs throughout the
years, as well as devoting as much time as he could to the common Seraphs. How could my father
simply tell the physician to leave? What would we do without him?
I was leaning over the railing and staring down into the valley, pretending to be fascinated by the
shadows the moons cast over the rocks. Somewhere out there, my father was holding a vigil over my
mother’s pyre with only Veldyn in attendance. If I listened hard enough, I could hear the crackle of
flames, and the light breeze brought the scent of funereal herbs to my nose.
I didn’t turn to acknowledge the physician, but I shivered when I heard the fledgling whimper. “Get—
that—out of my room!” I hissed. “I don’t want to see it.” A flake of ash drifted before my eyes, a
reminder of just why I did not want to look at the infant Navyn carried.
“He’s your brother.”
“That is not my brother. My brother is dead. That killed my mother.” I couldn’t clearly define the
emotions coursing through me. Grief, over the loss of my mother, shock at hearing my father’s sorrow,
and my wings shook with barely repressed rage over Navyn’s presumption at bringing the fledgling to
my room.
“No. It’s not his fault. You can’t punish him for the faults of others.”
“He’s an ill-omened fledgling, conceived in grief and birthed in grief. Conceived the day my brother
died and birthed the day my mother died. I don’t want it near me.”
The fledgling whimpered again and nuzzled his head into Navyn’s arm. “There, now, Starling,
Cadvyr didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”
I finally turned to him, raising an eyebrow and taking care not to look at the bundle he held. “
‘Starling?’ Why are you calling it that? It’s a name for a weak, helpless little—“ I stopped, realizing that
Navyn had me exactly where he wanted me. I’d just jumped to the defense of the fledgling I wanted to
forget.
“He is weak and helpless. Gods, Cadvyr, his eyes aren’t even open yet. He needs you. He doesn’t
have anyone else.”
Me, take care of a newborn fledgling? The Seraph was mad! “Why don’t you take care of it? I can’t,
I have duties to attend to. I can’t take him to the privy councils or to train the fledglings. It’s a female’s
task—“
“And you know how well the females here would treat him, not being of their own blood. I certainly
can’t care for him; I’m already old.”
He had me there. None of my father’s other consorts would deign to care for the newborn properly
since he was not of their blood. I tried desperately to think of another solution. “You’ve been foster
father to over forty royal fledglings, and you claim to be too old? I can’t care for him, Navyn. You ask
too much of me. Besides, all you have to do is look at him to know that he needs a physician’s
supervision.”
“How would you know? You haven’t even looked at him,” Navyn accused.
“Nor am I going to. He is not my responsibility.” Was this some ploy of his to give me a reason to
live? Some insurance that I wouldn’t try to throw myself off of another cliff? I wouldn’t do it; I wouldn’
t be manipulated into caring for a fledging I didn’t want!
“Blood calls to blood, Cadvyr, regardless of the circumstances that brought him into the world. He is
your brother. Care for him or leave him to the mercy of the desert, I care not which,” Navyn said, and
set the infant down in my hammock and left the room.
“Navyn! Don’t you dare!” I called to him, aghast. “Lord of the Wind, Navyn, come back!”
He didn’t come back, even when the fledgling started to cry, a mewling, hiccoughing kind of sound.
I made no move to comfort it, though the sound grated on my frazzled nerves. Perhaps if I didn’t touch
it, the fledgling would stop crying and I could ignore him for just a little longer.
I didn’t expect Navyn to return, but it was terribly cruel of him to leave the two of us alone together.
The fledgling was too weak and helpless to care for itself, and I was to terrified to care too deeply for
any living being again, which was exactly the reason that canny old Seraph had left him behind.
He’d caught me in a neat little trap. Navyn knew I’d never let the fledgling die of neglect, or of any
other reason I could prevent, and the only way to properly take care of him was to bend, if not break,
several of the doctrines of conduct. As Third Son, I was not allowed to have any of my own fledglings,
but the doctrines said nothing about caring for and raising a fledgling that was my brother in the event
of my mother’s death. Fledglings were not allowed at the dinner table until their first flight, but that was
because the blood-related females would take care of them at another table so they wouldn’t be a
nuisance at my father’s table. This little fledgling didn’t have that kind of support.
What if I did just leave it to die? Why should I care about it? Part of me wanted to let the fledgling
behind. How could I encourage the poor thing to thrive in a place like this? Unwanted, unloved, and
unlikely to survive no matter how carefully I watched over him?
But . . . I groaned. My mother had died because of him, and for him, and for me. The doctrines for
conduct had kept my mother and I apart, but she’d given me the only thing she could to show that she
truly cared for me. Gods. As much as I’d loved my mother, I resented the fact that I’d been guilt-
tripped into caring for a brother I did not want and could not accept.
I looked closer at the fledgling, still refraining from touching him. His eyes were tightly closed, the
lids tinted blue, and wouldn’t open for several days. Gray down ran from his forehead down the nape of
his neck and covered the little v-shaped limbs jutting from his back that would someday shape into
wings. Really, he was an ugly little thing, but all newborn fledglings were until their first feathers grew
in when they were two or three years of age.
Against my better judgment, I picked up the fledgling, still wrapped in his brygga-wool blanket, and
held him more like I would a load of cactus-fruit than an infant even though he was hardly bigger than
my two hands put together. Oddly enough, both of us seemed to calm with the contact. As many
fledglings as we had underfoot, I never had contact with the infants. They stayed with the females until
they were able to fly on their own, and after that they were given their own room and turned over to
Veldyn and I to begin weapons and agility training.
I knew nothing about fledglings, but I knew that this one was hungry. I wanted to put him down, to
leave him behind, but I had the irrational sensation that the fledgling would give me no peace unless I fed
him. Damn the physician. I wouldn’t leave the fledgling to starve, even though I was still loathe to look
at the scrawny thing, let alone touch it. How was it going to eat, anyway? Suckling obviously was not
an option, and I doubted one of the nursing brygga would stand still long enough to accept a feathered
kid. I would have to ask Navyn, much as that realization shamed me.
“Come on, little one,” I said, staying away from Navyn’s nickname of “starling.” “We shall have to
go see Navyn to figure out what is best for you.” I was only going to feed the thing; I hadn’t agreed to
care for it, not yet. There had to be a better option.
Navyn wasn’t in his still-room when I arrived, but I let myself in anyway. He would return soon
enough; his bedroom was at the rear, a cozy little nook with a small window. His still-room was
furnished with walls on every shelf, filled to the brim with plants, jars, bandages, books, and the various
other implements he used in his profession. His herb-bag stood ready by the door, meaning that Navyn
hadn’t gone on a medical emergency.
I sat with the fledgling on the all-too-familiar cot, chosen by Navyn over a hammock because he
couldn’t have his patients swaying while he tended them. I studied the shelves carved into the walls,
trying to find some means of feeding the fledgling. I knew that the orphaned brygga were bottle-fed if a
surrogate mother could not be found, but I did not see the means of fashioning such an implement and
did not wish to disturb Navyn’s collection without his permission.
I didn’t have to wait long. “Third Son,” Navyn said upon his return. He didn’t look at me, and instead
busied himself with some of the herbs on a shelf. Something had happened in the time he’d been gone.
He looked sad, something other than my mother’s death. “I had a feeling you would come.” He smiled
wanly, as if he were making a joke.
“You left me little choice,” I told him, still uncomfortable with the weight of the fledgling in my arms.
“He’s hungry.”
Navyn raised one feathery eyebrow. “How do you know?”
That seemed an odd question until I took a moment to think about it. “I just—know. It’s like he’s
telling me without using words. He won’t let me alone until I feed him. Don’t all infants do that?”
Navyn evaded my question by digging around on one of his shelves and withdrawing a clean cloth
and a bowl of fresh brygga milk. “Here, let me hold him a moment,” he said, and I handed him the
fledgling, feeling oddly cold as I did so. Navyn soaked the cloth in the milk and held it over the infant’s
mouth. The fledgling licked at it with a tiny pink tongue before he started trying to suck the moisture
from the cloth.
“Here, my prince, it’s your turn,” Navyn said. I took the fledgling back and tried to hold him as
efficiently as the physician did. “Watch his head,” he cautioned. I supported the fledgling’s head on my
upper arm and dipped the cloth in the milk, holding it above the infant’s mouth. Much to my relief, he
ate as well for me as he did for Navyn.
I continued the process for a while until the fledgling burped and turned his head away from the
cloth. Navyn had kept himself busy scribbling on parchment. “What’s the matter, Navyn? Where were
you?”
For a moment, I thought he would not answer me, because the quill continued its scratching. He
paused, and sighed. “We shall have to Name your brother sooner than usual. Tonight, in fact.”
“Tonight? How can we? His eyes won’t open for a few days yet.” I didn’t understand. Traditionally,
the newborn fledgling was given his name on the night his eyes opened for the first time and could see
the faces of those that Named him. It was the mother’s duty to name her infant, but without my mother
present I assumed the name would be mine to give.
Navyn turned away from me and fiddled with something on one of the shelves. “There is no easy way
to say this. Your father has requested that I leave his service, Third Son.”
“What? Why?” I demanded. I couldn’t imagine the palace without Navyn. He’d been here since
before my father was born and nursed not only him but countless other royal Seraphs throughout the
years, as well as devoting as much time as he could to the common Seraphs. How could my father
simply tell the physician to leave? What would we do without him?